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Oh yeah, if there was a way to send markup to the browser and have the browser render a UI for that. I wonder why nobody thought of that as of now ... oh. wait. ... ah we want "native" components. Yea. html only had "native components" for a long time, too ...

so - html as json without css and a richer component palette?

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I think that’s a very understandable reaction, and I had the same initially. But, there are upsides to using a proprietary format over HTML:

1. Encoding behavior in custom components without resorting to Turing complete languages (JS), such that custom components (eg DatePicker)

2. Dependencies between components, like rules, become possible: If textfield A is empty, disable button B.

3. Access to native APIs that are not (yet) implemented in browsers.

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